1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a home gateway apparatus which is a gateway to the Internet or other external networks from a plurality of terminal devices for domestic use, and more particularly, to a home gateway apparatus having an improved versatility so that a control of acquisition and transmission of management information can be made flexibly between a plurality of in-home terminal devices and a plurality of manager terminals on the external networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
For recent years, network household electrical appliances have been proposed as household electrical equipment that can be connected to networks. Thus, it will be possible to construct a network system by connecting the household electrical equipment to in-home or out-home networks, by installing a function to send or receive a variety of information with connection to networks to the household electrical equipment.
As for the domestic use electrical equipment having such a communication function, it will be possible to acquire necessary management information or to give a necessary operation command, getting direct access to the domestic use electrical equipment, from a portable terminal away from home or a terminal device at a distant location. In addition, it will also be possible for domestic use electrical equipment having a trouble to send specific trouble information to the terminal of a support company at a distant location by itself, asking for repair automatically.
For instance, in Japan Patent Laid-open Pub. No. 2000-7146, it is proposed that a refrigerator, air conditioner or other domestic use electrical equipment connected to a home network sends its operating information to a mail server through the Internet, so that a user away from home can acquire the operating information stored in the mail server using his or her portable terminal.
As for domestic use electrical equipment to be connected to a home network (hereinafter referred to as “intra-home terminal device” so as to mean a terminal within a home network), the maker of each electrical equipment is different, and the interface for each of these domestic use electrical equipment is also different. If an attempt is made to allow the domestic use electrical equipment to send the management information during operation to a maintenance or support company, using its communication function, the maintenance company or support company is not identical corresponding to different makers of the domestic use electrical equipment, thereby resulting in different destination of the management information to be sent and different interface. Further, the management information to be sent can be of various kinds, depending on the domestic use electrical equipment.
Generally, it will be a heavy burden for domestic use electrical equipment, which is severely restricted by cost, to directly communicate to an external network independently. Therefore, a proposal is being made to provide a common home gateway apparatus for all domestic use electrical equipment within a house and to communicate to an external network via the gateway apparatus.
However, this proposal has not been made specific, and any proposal has not been made as to the specific configuration of the home gateway apparatus for a plurality of domestic use electrical equipment. The development of a home gateway apparatus with an advanced versatility is being demanded so that the gateway apparatus can keep the match with a plurality of domestic use electrical equipment that have been developed up to now, while it can ensure the match with a plurality of domestic use electrical equipment that are expected to be developed in the future.